Well I am not necessarily against people buying ratings, but the group whom I do feel sorry for are the Turkish pilots (by the way I am not not Turkish), who are struggling to find jobs because "overseas" pilots are paying to fly with their local airlines. I doubt some of these Danish pilots would be quite supportive of of SSTR if it was Turkish pilots paying to fly on Danish airlines and were finding themselves priced out of the market.
I guess that is the true price of a freemarket economy (by the way I am instructor who is currently "fogged" in with weather so I have nothing better to do at the moment than waste time on pprune in the clubhouse).
In truth /I guess the JAR system is really the problem, allowing the modular / self improver route to hold a full CPL at 200 hours (also I am modular myself). I am not sure how the national licensing system worked in other European states, but the UK CAA self improver system meant everyone who didn't attend an integrated course had to obtain 700 hours to get a full CPL, hence most people had to instruct, para drop or something on a BCPL. Imagine if Ryanair had to wait for all the 200 hour Second Offcers it employed on SSTR scheme to obtain 700 hours through some other route, they would be forced to offer training bonds to attract candidates. I admit 500 hours of vfr hour building is irrelevant to flying an airliner, but at least the old system created a buffer in the system. So really it is the JAA system that has propagated the SSTR culture.
Last edited by portsharbourflyer; 4th Jun 2007 at 11:39.